Unfortunately, you won't get nearly as much gameplay as you did in the original Dragon Age: Origins. However, looking at the game on it's own, it is very enjoyable and is definitely worth your money. With more additions all around, and only a tiny hit on the story, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening is a well-polished and great expansion.

Playing with Words, on the other hand, is so conflicted they decide to avoid a conclusion. Here's part of their criticism:

Awakening is so easy it hurts. I imported my level 23 rogue and set the difficult to Hard and never once saw the Game Over screen. Hell, the only time a party member died was when I got complacent and didn't heal anyone, or when a boss cheaply one-shotted them. On the other hand, with the new talents that are available from the get-go, I could one-shot epic Rage Demons and friggin' Golems, while also tanking 3-4 enemies on my rogue. Enemies just don't do any damage anymore.

I had some minor issues with it, but I am not done playing yet and have already played well over the 16 hour mark - so I question that time as well. Maybe they just did only the main quests, or skimmed all the content.

I think I'm a bit less than a third through. I haven't finished the 1st of the three missions the game offers you near the start. 6 or 7 hours I've played for, but I've been taking it slow.

It's more DA. It seems easier though, I set the difficulty to hard a while back (I think when I started my second playthrough the original game) and I'm having no trouble. Running a tri-Mage party at the moment, so that might be why I'm finding it so easy. Ogren dies every so often if I forget to heal him. Sadly the lack of difficulty has disengaged me from the combat somewhat. A 3-Fireball opening softens up most stuff to the point it's trivial. Mind Blast to reset aggro, have tank taunt, then insert some CoCs, WGs, that new Battlemage Frost AoE etc.

Speaking of the new Battlemage Frost AoE - it's totally insane. Massive AoE damage, a freeze, and it doesn't affect friendlies. It certainly provides an incentive to wade into the front lines!

I have to agree that it is too easy. There are only two fights that are even remotely challenging - a certain dragon fight, and the final boss. Other than that, it's a walk in the park.

Also, there are many glitches and bugs. The worst I've encountered is a bug in the mine in the woods:

Spoiler

You lose all your gear here. That's okay, it's part of the story. However, the gear of the main character does not always spawn where it's supposed to spawn, so it's lost forever. I've seen one playthrough where it worked as intended, and one where it didn't.

Not a bad expansion. The added class abilities are fun (especially the 2-handed warrior ones), although a bit overpowered. Which in the end causes the difficulty to suffer (quite a bit).

The new area's and quests are a lot of fun to go through and some of your choises have outcomes that are a lot less predictable than those in any other bioware game of the past decade. I clocked arround 15,5 hours on my first playthrough on nightmare difficulty with about 70-80% of all sidequests done (I think).

And I actually like the possible party members a lot more than those of the original game. While you can't have a direct chat with them when outside of your "camp", they do react more to the world as you traverse it. Looking at a statue or arriving at a certain place will trigger far more often a party member reaction (in the form of a cutscene with dialogue options) than in the original game.

Also, there is a lot more banter between the party members this time around. But what's really great about the banter this time, is that this time the banter progresses like a story inbetween party members. For example : 2 party members were hostile as they met the first time. But as time advanced and they talked more to eachother (with consistant conversations), they started to grow closer to eachother without me interfering in any way. They just feel a lot less static than the old party members.

Well, that, and I thought they felt less generic than the party members of DA:O.

In the end, I found the 30€ I spent on it to be worth it. Not sure if it's really worth the 40€ console players need to pay for it though, since it's not that big (still bigger than most other console games though).

But I must also warn for bugs, although I personally hardly ran into any of them. The only real bug I ran into was a crash to desktop half of the time when I used holy smite on someone casting a spell. Also, the more custom addons you use, the bigger the chance that you'll get crashes (for now atleast).

Spoiler

You lose all your gear here. That's okay, it's part of the story. However, the gear of the main character does not always spawn where it's supposed to spawn, so it's lost forever. I've seen one playthrough where it worked as intended, and one where it didn't.

Were you wearing gear from RTO when you lost all your gear? I've heared that's what triggers the bug.

- Full Sentinel Armor set (head, gauntlets, breastplate, boots)
- Spellsomething sword (Arcane Warrior sword)
- Can't remember the shield I was wearing, think it was from Redcliffe.
- Key to the City (the ring from Orzammar, I suspect this might be the culprit, since it was still equipped when everything else was stripped away).
- Lifegiver (bought in Orzammar)
- Mageshield (the amulet from the malificar sidequest)
- The belt you can buy from the Mage Tower

The first time, when the bug did not occur, I was playing a Rogue in full Sentinel Armor, with Lifegiver and Mageshield, but without Key to the City.

Edit: Tried it with yet another character, an archer. This character had a completely different gear setup than the other two, but I still used Key to the City. No bug. That rules out Key to the City as the source.

Originally Posted by Davion
While you can't have a direct chat with them when outside of your "camp", they do react more to the world as you traverse it.

Uhm, I think you can't chat with them while in the "camp" as well. By far, that's biggest issue I'm having with Awakening.

Originally Posted by Badesumofu
It's more DA. It seems easier though, I set the difficulty to hard a while back (I think when I started my second playthrough the original game) and I'm having no trouble. Running a tri-Mage party at the moment, so that might be why I'm finding it so easy. Ogren dies every so often if I forget to heal him. Sadly the lack of difficulty has disengaged me from the combat somewhat.